Climate change already costs 150 000 lives a year, experts say

As the Kyoto protocol came into force last week, UK experts on climate change warned in a study published last week in the Canadian Medical Association's journal that if greenhouse gas emissions were not reduced “the health burdens of climate change are likely to approximately double by 2020, mostly because of increased rates of diarrhoeal disease and malnutrition in low-income countries” (CMAJ 2005;172: 501-2).

Sari Kovats, a lecturer in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and …